Feminists have pointed out that even if some people born with penises go on to call themselves women and “live as women”, whatever this means, they still have grown up as men, and received male socialization. This means they are likely more aggressive, more assertive, and more confident. Their male socialization makes women wary of them, because many women have very negative experiences with people who have been socialized male.

Their male socialization also means that they often have had an advantage early in life, because males are socialized to be more confident, take up more room, and to develop their skills in traditionally “male” areas.

This idea is however ridiculed by many trans activists. We see an example here:

“Transwomen internalize female socialization”, this person states. Anyone who identifies as female internalize female socialization, is the claim. The same claim is found in the webcomic “Assigned male” shown below. “Trans women don’t benefit from male socialization” it says, and explains that “as girls, they learn toxic things about femininity too”.

The claim seems to come up a lot:

“trans women internalize female socialization, and thus are women and socialized as such”.

Never mind that many, many trans people don’t realize that they are trans until they are adults. Never mind that socialization does not work that way. Most of the socialization people receive is not in the form of “this is for girls and this is for boys”. It is much more subtle; for example boys get much more attention from teachers, and the teachers are unaware of this fact themselves. Never mind that the same webcomic directly contradicts its previous statement with this panel:

“We don’t even talk the same way to children depending on the gender we perceive them to be”, the comic correctly states.

“I’m far more assertive than most girls of my personality type”, this commenter says:

And watch what happens when someone comes onto r/asktransgender to ask for clarification regarding difference between male and female brains as it relates to transgenderism. Suddenly commenters are using male and female socialization as an argument for innate, biological gender identity.

“Honestly if you’re mtf you’re raised male til you transition”, is suddenly the truth of the matter now. It seems like there are two conflicting arguments being used here, and the story changes based on what they are trying to accomplish.

I want to climb a tall mountain and scream “There is nothing inherently feminine about me!! I am not these stereotypical traits! I was not born WITH them I was born INTO them and fought the latter of my life to be BE RID of them!! I was not born wanting to experience rape abuse etc!!”

I am trans (ftm) and no, socialization is definitely a thing based on your percieved sex. I get a LOT of male privilege that I didn’t before transition, and while I still have some issues caused by the effects of misogyny in my past, I can safely and confidently say that I’ve lived both sides of the coin.

The idea that trans people somehow magically have the socialization of their correct sex (as opposed to their sex at birth) is complete and utter bullshit. But I get *WHY* people say that.

Being trans sucks. It’s mentally painful, physically painful, it’s fucking awkard, and it’s exhausting. It’s not a choice. It’s a medical condition. And when you live with a shitty medical condition that fucks up your body and mind, you try to get away with it any way you can.

It’s so much easier to divorce yourself from your at birth sex entirely, to say I was NEVER a girl/boy, than to have to constanly go back to some of your most painful and miserable points in life.

It’s factually incorrect and emotionally and intellectually dishonest. It’s a poor coping skill. But I get why it happens.

I get your point, but it is not as if anyone demands from them to dig into their early childhood memories. It is a known fact that boys get more attention from teachers, etc. All they have to do is acknowledge that, and acknowledge their privilege. It is not necessary that they remember it. (No one notices being given privilege, anyway, most of the time. That’s how it works.)

Of course, this claim is especially ridiculous if it comes from fifty-year-old men who made a ton of money with their successful careers, and then, when their career is basically over, claim to always have been women.

The counterargument goes like this: What about transgender children who were brought up as female by the age of 5 (there is nothing medically done to them until the age of 11 and nothing permanent done to them until the age of 16) and then reach the age of 25? A child doesn’t need any help in order to pass as the opposite sex, all a MtF child has to do is grow their hair and change their clothes and everyone will treat them as female. 80% of their life they have female socialization. Friends treat them as female, teachers treat them as female, parents, adults, etc all treat them as female because most of them never even knew they were born male. They never receive male privilege after age 5, and they also face discrimination for being trans as well[1]. If experiencing the hardship of being female is what makes someone female these people are female by that definition.

Then you consider trans women who have transitioned at 16, 21, 26, 31 etc and yes, they’ve had male socialization. However they’ve also had female socialization. With current medical knowledge it’s possible to inexpensively change your body so that anyone can be treated as the opposite sex [2]. A 32 year old person who transitioned at 16 has half male socialization and half female socialization. This person knows what it’s like to be female; to be harassed on the street, face rape (It used to be that when someone raped or killed a trans woman they could use the fact that she had a penis to justify beating/hurting/killing her in order to reduce their sentence or even get away with rape; disgusting)[3], economic discrimination, basically anything besides menstruation, childbirth, or other biological things. Eventually, trans women find out what it is like to be women.

The flip side of this is trans men and male socialization. Trans men who transition at the age of 5 have grown up as male, trans men who are 32 who transitioned at 16 has half of each socialization. Trans men know what’s like to be male. etc.

It should be noted that trans men commit crime at a greater rate than trans women. In this study that looks at transitioned transgender people, which all of you have seen, a population of 191 trans women committed 33 crimes and a population of 133 trans men commit 27 crimes after their transition. That is .173 crimes per trans woman (33/191) and .203 crimes per trans man (27/133).

Trans women were .8 as likely to commit a crime as a man while trans men were 4.1 times as likely to commit a crime as a woman (the adjusted hazard ratio). Trans men committed crime at the same rate as regular men (use ctrl F “by contrast, female-to-males were” on the study page). Does that make sense? The problem with this study is that it does not adjust for economic status, just for immigrant status and psychiatric morbidity (read the text at the bottom of the image I provided) and the study used data from 1973 to 2003. Back in 1988 economic discrimination would of been extremely high in Sweden, far higher than in the United states in 2015. In 2015 in the US the transgender poverty rate is 4 times the rest of the population[4]. Transgender people could easily have a poverty rate of 10 times the control population or most likely more.

So the crime rates in this study are highly inflated for both trans men and trans women.

That’s the nature of this type of discrimination, it dissipates over time. If you were to go back 50 years the poverty rates for groups like African Americans and women would be much much higher than today. Likewise transgenderism is far more accepted today than 30 years ago. Large organizations like the American medical association, the American Psychological Association, The American Psychiatric Association, and many more comprising of a total membership of 860,000 have only started coming out and backing transgenderism recently in the 2000s to today.

I don’t agree that this is a counter-argument to the post at all. The argument being addressed in the post is the claim “transwomen and women have identical socialization”- rather, it is enough to state that there are differences between the way woman and transwomen are socialized. That’s it. Even if a transwoman transitions at the age of 5, their parents know what the birth sex is, others outside the family may know, they may still not pass at the age of puberty(even after taking puberty blockers/hormones, unethical and dangerous as that is), etc etc. That all suggests that there will be differences of experience between their lives and female lives.

To give one example from my own experiences dealing with small children, males and females in our culture have to be taught different strategies to use the toilet during potty training(for the vast majority of children), which is based entirely on biology, but is also an early social experience that biological males have that biological females will not, and vice versa. Early transitioning doesn’t change that, and it can’t address any underlying biases or subjective treatment among friends and family who are aware of the child’s actual sex. So… males and females have different experiences. That’s all that needs to be said.

Your counter-argument, thus, would need to be: No transwoman and no woman have ever had different socialization, either as children or adults. I know that isn’t the argument you’re making, but some do, and THAT’S what makes it so offensive to women.

Also, since the original point was that some trans supporters make one argument and some the other, the actual case would need to be that there is unity among all trans supporters on the question of male/female socialization as it relates to trans individuals and non-trans individuals. And in which case, what the agreement is, because I honestly have no idea. It seems to be a argument purely of convenience, depending on what the question is and who’s asking.

I’m just going to argue my perspective, not a more extreme trans-supporters perspective.

The socialization trans men and trans women have is not the same socialization that women or men get; it should be recognized as different from both men and women.

If a child is born female but has a male appearance, people who know the child’s birth gender aren’t going to treat the child as female. They might treat the child differently, so it might not be exactly the same as male socialization, but what reason would you have to think they wouldn’t default to the child’s outward appearance when socializing with the child?

The secondary sex characteristics at puberty are what distinguishes men and women visually. If they don’t go through this puberty they will still be androgynous.

Differences in potty training seem minuscule, how does it affect their behavior at all? Some women don’t even menstruate and they’re socialized as female. Biological differences like that don’t make up much of gendered socialization.

As for things being offensive to women, mainstream feminists don’t take offense to transgenderism. If you look at female spaces on the internet you’ll find they’re perfectly fine with transgender people. A woman would pretty much have to either have your ideology or be a christian conservative in order to be offended by the positions held by transgenderism.

You don’t seem to understand that the paper does not support your claim that the violence rate for women is higher then men. Men’s criminal and violence rate is JUST AS HIGH BEFORE TRANSITION and did not change after transition, SO IT APPEARS LIKE THE % number of violent males like your self is lower compared to the jump in females.

I will make it simple and explain like you are five:

So, lets say

80% of males are sexually violent before transition, and 80% of males are criminally violent AFTER transition

AND-

Two percent of women are criminally violent before T, and then that # raises to 5% after they transition, -with the increase of a 3% rate in that group

You have the figures presented as So:

It LOOKS like females became more violent- a 3% increase, compared to men whose violence rates did not change.

The 3% change- in no way imply s that women become 3% more violent than men.

Since you are unable to grasp this basic concept,- I have no interest to talk with you. I suggest you spin this on tumbler.
And BTW,

Can we just forget that were debating things we disagree with online for a moment? Someone has just released my personal information with my email address and IP address. Isn’t this the kind of shit that happens to feminists like Anita sarkeesian? How is this okay? What kind of person reacts to an internet argument like this?” Why was her post approved? Her post needs to be removed.

I haven’t had any previous reaction with this woman, I haven’t done anything but post one comment on her blog.

And don’t tell me women don’t have to be nice, I know that but everyone should be a decent person.

“what reason would you have to think they wouldn’t default to the child’s outward appearance when socializing with the child?”

-You’re making a ton of assumptions here about a hypothetical child neither of us know anything about. The way a child is treated depends on: Their race. Their physical attractiveness(even before puberty). Their weight. Their height. The sound of their voice. Their perceived sex.

…And 99.9% of all children are perceived, correctly, as their biological sex. It’s not as amorphous and confusing as you’re trying to pretend that it is. The few children/adults who pass as the opposite sex may or may not experience the socialization of that sex, depending on many other factors and whether or not those they meet are aware of their true sex.

“Differences in potty training seem minuscule, how does it affect their behavior at all?”

-That’s kinda the point. Socialization is subtle and often unconscious. I don’t know what affect it has, and neither do you. It remains an experience distinguished by sex that has nothing to do with “gender”. If you want another example, I, as an adult, gender-nonconforming woman, have never had a prostate exam. Nor do I anticipate ever getting one. Some women don’t menstruate. Some women also don’t get pregnant- they still share more in common with other women than with “trans women”, partly because of biology, partly because of socialization due to perceived biology.

“As for things being offensive to women, mainstream feminists don’t take offense to transgenderism. If you look at female spaces on the internet you’ll find they’re perfectly fine with transgender people. A woman would pretty much have to either have your ideology or be a christian conservative in order to be offended by the positions held by transgenderism.”

-I am a woman. It is offensive to me. Other women that I know are also women who find it offensive. I don’t care what female spaces on the internet consider acceptable, because the internet is a meaningless space devoid of common sense and logic and polluted by whatever opinion happens to be popular at this moment in time. Popularity is not a logical argument, and I am not interested in your illogical arguments.

Conservative Christians are women, too. The only people who aren’t women? Men.

The overall mortality for sex-reassigned persons was higher during follow-up (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 1.8–4.3) than for controls of the same birth sex, particularly death from suicide (aHR 19.1; 95% CI 5.8–62.9). Sex-reassigned persons also had an increased risk for suicide attempts (aHR 4.9; 95% CI 2.9–8.5) and psychiatric inpatient care (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 2.0–3.9). Comparisons with controls matched on reassigned sex yielded similar results. Female-to-males, but not male-to-females, had a higher risk for criminal convictions than their respective birth sex controls.

Conclusions

Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.
——————————-

In other words, suicide goes up AFTER you mutilate yourself, indicating that NO surgical treatment will help you and it is a mental problem that mostly males have A few of its’ references suggest that this is fetish driven in men.

In women, it seems to be more recognized as a mental illness with a higher-than normal -[for women] risk of ‘criminal convictions’ [not violent ones] because women normally have a lower crime rate than males., The post does not suggest that The crime rate for women becomes higher then men’s at any time.

The phrase: ‘ had a higher risk for criminal convictions than their respective birth sex controls.’ means women on T were more likely to have criminal convictions compared to women NOT taking T

As for M to trans, the male violence for men doesn’t change at all After transition, and the men do not become passive as a result of transition. Men’s criminal and violence rate did not change after transition, the men remained violent as they were to begin with.

It does not say women became more violent than men, you misread it. I suggest you read it again, before you make your self look stupid showing this to an educated person.

The other two links are not scientific sites, they are cultish fan sites.

He’s been stalking my blog with his false male decorations that women are so much more violent then men….poor men, why won’t women listen him? And after he demanded to have a woman to abuse online with his mind games?

He wants you to know women rape men all the time too,

but he still can’t really read data, just cherry pick and try to twist it.

It does not indicate a crime rate higher than men. He is misreading the data, and doesn’t want to believe it from any female. He is clearly an entitled male that thinks no female can see through him twisting this.

The phrase: ‘ had a higher risk for criminal convictions than their respective birth sex controls.’ means women on T were more likely to have criminal convictions compared to women NOT taking T. Women on T have a lower crime rate than Male to trans, but they omitted that information. This points out-women likely do get roid rage/erratic from T, but the number % is applied to only women who don’t take T, and it is certainly-still lower then a males.

As for M to trans, the male violence for men doesn’t change at all After transition, and THIS MEANS the men do not become passive as a result of transition.[this is why the percentage looks smaller in men on the chart]

Men’s criminal and violence rate is JUST AS HIGH BEFORE TRANSITION and did not change after transition, SO IT APPEARS LIKE THE % number of violent males like your self is lower compaired to the jump in females.

– but they are comparing an ALREADY high crime rate in males to a difference in men’s crime rate after transition–the men remained violent as they were to begin with. MEN REMAIN VIOLENT AND this DOES NOT WAVER.

THIS is why the % is smaller. The violence rate of men is higher than women, even when the woman is on T. THEY OMMITTED THIS.

It does not say women became more violent than men, he misread it, and wants to waste time trying to argue that the sky is green and non-reality mind-games with a boner for abusing women..He is too unarmed for me. I suggest he read it again, but he is now posting his mind-less male supremacy MRA crap all over my blog trying to argue with something already there in print.

To transgender reality: your explanation is fair, sorry for accusing you of deleting my response. I’ll try removing all the links from my post.

Here is what is posted in the discussion section of the study:

Find the study by googling “swedish study transgender” and clicking on long term follow up

“Given the nature of sex reassignment, a double blind randomized controlled study of the result after sex reassignment is not feasible. We therefore have to rely on other study designs. For the purpose of evaluating whether sex reassignment is an effective treatment for gender dysphoria, it is reasonable to compare reported gender dysphoria pre and post treatment. **Such studies have been conducted either prospectively[7], [12] or retrospectively,[5], [6], [9], [22], [25], [26], [29], [38] and suggest that sex reassignment of transsexual persons improves quality of life and gender dysphoria.** The limitation is of course that the treatment has not been assigned randomly and has not been carried out blindly.”

“For the purpose of evaluating the safety of sex reassignment in terms of morbidity and mortality, however, it is reasonable to compare sex reassigned persons with matched population controls. The caveat with this design is that transsexual persons before sex reassignment might differ from healthy controls (although this bias can be statistically corrected for by adjusting for baseline differences). It is therefore important to note that the current study is only informative with respect to transsexuals persons health after sex reassignment; **no inferences can be drawn as to the effectiveness of sex reassignment as a treatment for transsexualism.**”

So the study denounces the use of itself for the purpose of evaluating the effectiveness of sex reassignment (such as in measuring suicide) because it only compare trans people after reassignment to regular non-trans people. They also provide ten studies that counter the the suicide rates found in the original study.

Also, in a recent study access to medical procedures that allowed transition, for those who wanted it, were found to reduce the rate of seriously considering suicide by half.

Medical transition variables, but not social transition or being perceived as cisgender, were associated with suicidality. Among those who desired medical transition, those on hormone therapy were about half as likely to have seriously considered suicide (RR = 0.52; 95 % CI: 0.37, 0.75).

So those that had hormone therapy who wanted it reported seriously considering suicide half as much as others who didn’t have it who wanted it. There is much more information in the study that is key to understanding trans issues so I recommend you read it.

put the following phrase in google:

“Across Europe, Canada, and the United States, 22–43 % of transgender (trans) people report a history of suicide attempts. We aimed to identify intervenable factors (related to social inclusion, transphobia, or sex/gender transition) associated with reduced risk of past-year suicide ideation or attempt, and to quantify the potential population health impact.”

and then click on the “Intervenable factors” link

Then there is the overwhelming support for these treatments in the medical, psychological, and scientific community.The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association The American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Physician Assistants, the American Public Health Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American College of Nurse Midwives all have made statements in support of current treatments and do not discriminate in their care of trans individuals. That is a total membership of 776,000 or medical professionals, psychologists, and scientists who have reached that consensus.

Google “What do medical and psychiatric professionals think of current transgender treatments?” and click on the first link”

So you need to look over 11 studies and explain why there is something wrong with each of them and you also need to explain why the medical, psychological, and scientific community overwhelmingly support sex-reassignment.

To find the ten studies find the original study I can’t link for whatever reason, hit ctrl F and type “Such studies have been conducted either” and click on the links

To find the study, google “swedish study transgender” and click on “long term follow up…”

On crime:

The study states that trans women commit only 80% of the crime that men commit, look at the “any crime” section in the following image. That hazard ratio is the rate at which trans women commit crime compared to regular men:

The study also says that the crime rate for trans men was equal to the crime rate of regular men:

I think the socialization argument is faulty anyway. I agree that men/boys are treated better than women/girls and in many cases are actively taught that they are better than women and entitled to anything. Still, I think men’s violence, especially violence against women is biologically based too. Just look at the way other mammals behave. Not that that excuses their behavior because men won’t rape women when the risk to themselves is too high. They are capable of practicing restraint. To me the socialization argument implies that if we just focused on raising men better (put even more energy into men) then they would be nice and peaceful and know how to respect women. Well, the baby boomer generation, generations X and Y, and millenials have all had mothers who were feminists, or have benefited from feminism in some way and men are just as violent as they ever were. You can find plenty of male serial killers who grew up in functional middle-class environments filled with loving relatives. A few men are trustworthy, but they shouldn’t be worshiped and made once again more important than women.

But I guess it doesn’t matter so much whether male violence is socially caused, biologically caused, or a combination of both, since men aren’t changing and pleading with them to stop the violence is a waste of time.

And regardless of your views on this, it’s pretty clear that none of these men are female in anyway.

This is a rather interesting topic.
My Mom raised me as a gender nonconforming child, so she didn’t enforce gender stereotypes per say, but I was also not allowed to do some things that were considered girl things. I also had a very sheltered childhood. I think that is one of the reasons, why I have Peter Pan Syndrome (I’ve also read that some people with Intersex conditions, who go “untreated” can have this as well. And no, this is not the same as acting like a child sometimes. I can’t turn it off.).

And it’s interesting, because since I started transitioning over two years ago, I did nothing to learn how to act like a female. To me, it’s been innate. Of course I’ve always been hormonally female.

I do know what it’s like to be treated differently. I was also born with Albinism. And I think quite a few people in my life, thought I was gay. I had to repeat the sixth grade, and went to two different schools. At each school, I was pulled aside in gym class, and was made the teachers assistant, which was pretty rare for a boy to be. And at the second school, I had the keys to both lockers rooms, and the lockers. I could open any locker I wanted, but I never used them, except to get into the storage rooms. So clearly, they thought I wouldn’t be a problem in the girls locker room.

I’ve definitely noticed how guys act together, and I tried to fit in (clearly didn’t work). And now that I’m transitioning, I’ve noticed it even more.

I’ve been treated very poorly by most of my managers over the years. My first real job, working at Wendy’s, I was only given THREE hours a week. Most of my classmates, had twenty hours. And I had to fight three GM’s at Papa John’s, just so I could be a assistant manager.